Rebecca Day

Lenovo’s proposed purchase of Motorola Mobility from Google for $2.91 billion will be felt hardest among competitors including Huawei, LG and ZTE, which have been jockeying for the No. 3 position among worldwide smartphone makers behind Samsung and Apple, analysts said Thursday. “If you're a Samsung or an Apple, this isn’t going to hurt you too much right now, but if you're anybody else this is pretty significant,” IDC’s Ramon Llamas told us.

Harman raised its revenue forecast for fiscal 2014 to $5.1 billion from $4.7 billion on stronger demand in all three segments, the company said Thursday. All three segments -- Infotainment, Lifestyle and Professional -- had double-digit growth for fiscal Q2 ended Dec. 31, said CEO Dinesh Paliwal. Net sales for the quarter grew to $1.3 billion, from $1.1 billion in the year-ago quarter. Net income for the quarter was $72 million, vs. $47 million in fiscal Q2 2013.

Fiscal Q3 2014 revenue at Cirrus Logic fell 29 percent on changes in pricing structure and a shift in mix to products with lower selling prices, the company said in a shareholder letter issued Tuesday ahead of its earning call. Cirrus’s largest customer, Apple, was about 84 percent of Cirrus’s total net sales for Q3 of fiscal year 2014 and 91 percent for 2013, and 81 percent of the company’s total sales for the first nine months of fiscal years 2014 and 82 percent for 2013, Cirrus said in a 10-Q filing.

The smartphone market hit the 1-billion-shipment mark for the first time in 2013, said an International Data Corp. tracking report. Just more than a billion smartphones shipped worldwide, an increase of 38 percent from 725.3 million units shipped in 2012, it said. Smartphones were 55 percent of all mobile phone shipments last year, up from the 41.7 percent in 2012, IDC said. In Q4, vendors shipped 284.4 million smartphones worldwide, up 24 percent from the 229 million units shipped the year-ago quarter.

Remote Technologies Inc. (RTI) is shipping the CX7, a wired touch-screen for two-way control of AV, environmental and security systems for homes and business. The 7-inch multi-touch capacitive LCD touch-screen includes analog audio and video inputs, stereo speakers, wired and wireless ethernet and proximity and ambient light sensors, the company said. While consumers like to control their installations from a tablet or smartphone, dealers and users “are realizing that the user experience is enhanced using a dedicated controller,” said Peter Baker, RTI vice president-sales and marketing. RTI has begun adding cameras and microphones to its interfaces, with plans to add intercom functionality through software releases and a firmware update, Baker said. On features the unit offers that a smartphone or tablet cannot, Baker said the CX7 is “always on” and “can’t walk away” as a mobile device does as users need them for other activities. Users can view satellite TV on the CX7, he said, and the device has an adjustable tilt allowing it to be angled at nearly 90 degrees depending on mounting requirements.

Former Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch joined Savant Systems as CEO, the company said Tuesday. Savant founder Robert Madonna, who held the CEO position since 2005, was named chairman of the privately held company.

LAS VEGAS -- Protecting consumers’ private information is a crucial link to making the connected home a reality, said representatives from LG, Verizon and Lowe’s during an informal panel sponsored by Lowe’s at CES.

Licensing revenue from PCs plummeted 27 percent in Dolby’s fiscal Q1 2014 ended Dec. 27, which contributed to a $5.3 million revenue drop from fiscal Q1 2013, the company said. PCs were 21 percent of total licensing for Q1, which was up slightly over the year-over quarter to $205.7 million, said Chief Financial Officer Lewis Chew. The trend is expected to continue for the current quarter due to the transition from the Windows 7 to the Windows 8 business model, Chew said.

TV makers looking to push out inventories of last year’s sets have jumped on the football theme in advance of Super Bowl Sunday, we found in a scan of manufacturers’ e-commerce sites Friday, but getting those products to homes in time for the actual game was another story.

SanDisk had record product revenue from solid-state drives in Q4, with SSDs now comprising 19 percent of annual revenue, said CEO Sanjay Mehrotra on the company’s earnings call Wednesday. Opportunities continue to grow in client SSDs for SanDisk, which had 170 percent growth for the year in SSDs across all channels, Mehrotra said. The ongoing shift in consumer preference for “high performance, slim form factor, long battery life and instant-on capability” is driving demand for SSDs in notebook PCs and ultrathin devices, he said. In mobile, SanDisk’s embedded solutions -- including discrete iNAND, iNAND MCP and custom solutions -- drove “significant growth,” particularly in the China market where the company strengthened its position with entry and mid-range OEMs, Mehrotra said. The company expects iNAND products to be an important contributor to growth in embedded revenue this year, he said. SanDisk also set a record for annual retail product revenue in Q4, driven by USB flash drives and “a rich mix” of high-performance mobile cards, he said. Looking ahead, Mehrotra said the Internet of Things will drive “explosive growth in data generation, cloud computing and big data analytics,” each of which will have specific requirements for flash solutions that SanDisk can meet through its embedded solutions and SSDs “that can be deployed in all tiers of the data center.” Commenting on the transition to 1Y process technology, Mehrotra said 1Y technology achieved cost crossover with 19 nanometer technology in Q4, and Chief Financial Officer Judy Bruner said 1Y technology will account for roughly two-thirds of SanDisk’s bit output by year end. SanDisk expects to introduce X3-based embedded products during the year and is making good progress in developing the 1Z node, Mehrotra said. The company is on track for the production transition to 1Z technology toward the end of 2014 and plans to use new cleanroom space for pilot production of 3D NAND in the latter part of 2015, Mehrotra said. The company’s expectation for the production ramp of 3D NAND in 2016 “remains unchanged,” he said. On bit supply growth, Bruner said the current supply demand balance is “healthy,” but the company expects the industry price decline to be “somewhat more” than the price decline in 2013. SanDisk’s strategy for 2014 is to shift its portfolio to higher value-added solutions, “but there is obviously some expectation of price decline in the industry and in our business model as well,” she said. For Q4, SanDisk revenue was $1.7 billion compared with $1.5 billion, with gross profit of $857 million versus $603 in the year-ago quarter, the company said. Q4 and fiscal 2013 cash flow from operations set quarterly and annual records of $617 million and $1.86 billion, the company said. SanDisk shares closed 0.2 percent lower Thursday at $72.02.